BBC’s Doctor Who program was still in its sophomore season when the not-yet-iconic character leapt to the big screen. Whereas William Hartnell essayed the stuffy title role on the telly, Dr. Who and the Daleks got name value with Peter Cushing. It also gained one other out-of-this-world asset: color!
Dr. Who’s just hanging at the house with granddaughters Susan (Roberta Tovey, The Beast in the Cellar) and Barbara (Jennie Linden, Old Dracula) when the latter’s new beau arrives. His name is Ian (Roy Castle, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors) and he’s one clumsy suitor. As Dr. Who shows off his Tardis (a fancy term for a garage-cum-time machine) and its hodgepodge of bleep-de-boop machinery to the lad, Ian pratfalls onto the big, red button that sends the foursome to an undetermined point in space.
They emerge on a planet with a petrified forest and loads of radiation. They’re also stuck until Dr. Who can locate enough mercury to refill some sparkle baton on the Tardis wall. Venturing toward the nearest building, which resembles a tribute to geometry, they run afoul of the Daleks. To non-nerds, those are cyborgs on rollers with voices that sound like speaking into an oscillating fan, but only. One. Syllable. At. A. Time.
Our human heroes subdue a Dalek by covering its eyehole with a clump of breakfast pudding. Meanwhile, little Susan’s sent on some godforsaken errand to score drugs. (Yes, to cure radiation sickness, but it’s fun to leave that detail out.) What follows would become part and parcel for a great many sci-fi TV series, like CBS’ short-lived Planet of the Apes: Encountering someone who’ll help you out. In this case, that’s the Thals, a race of humanoids distinguishable for their close-cropped haircuts, costuming you might find in an Andy Milligan production, and eye shadow so heavy and lid-consuming, Sophie Ellis-Bextor would be green with envy.
Regrettably, aside from those primary colors and the set for the Daleks’ lair, little is cinematic about the doctor’s first of two adventures that kids have to leave the house to catch. Not even genre god Cushing’s stumbling-buffoonery take is worth the trouble. It’s a wholly inoffensive confection, best consumed as Saturday-matinee fare. Just grab your nearest time machine. —Rod Lott